Monthly Archives: January 2006

Every night when I walk past TT The Bear’s Place on my way home I turn my head a little to see the dry-erase board that lists the evening’s entertainment. Last week on Monday, the sign read “Guitar Hero, The PlayStation Game“. Apparently a video game, which features a plastic guitar, has taken over for actual live music.
This may not be a bad thing. In a society that favors home theatres to corner coffee shops, it’s nice to see a movement towards public interaction. As video games become the standard interactive entertainment choice, it’s good to see that some games are breaching their inactive antisocial bounds (nod to my high school friend who referred to his system as a “super no-friendo”). In the case of MMORPGs, the player is isolated but the game is social. In the case of Guitar Hero at TT’s, the game itself is solitary, but the player encounters actual, live, interaction (in real time too).